Furyk has drought-breaker lead

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March 21, 2010

A third-round 67 has given Jim Furyk a three-shot, drought-breaker lead at the Transitions Championship in Florida.

A third-round 67 has given Jim Furyk a three-shot lead at the Transitions Championship and put him on track to breaking the longest victory drought of his career

The American Ryder Cup player, who is trying to win for the first time since the 2007 Canadian Open, posted a flawless four-under-par 67 to move to 11-under and build a three-shot lead at the Copperhead course in Palm Harbour, Florida .

“I’m in a great position in the tournament,” said Furyk, who picked up birdies at the first, 11th, 12th and 15th holes as he added to his earlier rounds of 67 and 68.

“I’ve got a 3-shot lead. You kind of dictate what the other guys have to do.”

The defending champion Retief Goosen of South Africa is three back at 8-under in a four-way tie for second with KJ Choi of South Korea, American Bubba Watson and Swede Carl Pettersson.

Choi also fired a 67, while Goosen, who birdied the last hole in his roller coaster round, Watson and Pettersson all shot 1-under 70s.

Overnight leader Padraig Harrington, a three-time major champion who hasn’t won since the 2008 PGA Championship, hit a dry patch, going for 14 holes without a birdie to fall out of the lead, and then dropped another shot on the 18th hole for a 72 that left him four strokes behind on seven-under..

He is tied with England’s Luke Donald, who was another to go round in 67, and veteran Jeff Maggert of the USA.

It would have been even better for Donald, who picked up six birdies, had he not bogeyed the 18th.

England’s Justin Rose also shot a 67 to sit five-under overall.

Furyk, a one-time US Open champion, has played in 58 tournaments on the PGA Tour without winning and this is his first 54-hole lead since the Colonial nearly three years ago where he was beaten in a play-off by Rory Sabbatini.

Today gives him a great chance to shrug away a long and frustrating string of disappointments.

Geoff Ogilvy, on the other hand, at seven shots off the pace, has little or no chance of getting up among the front runners on the closing stretch.

But there is an unusual little saga behind the fact that he is still in the tournament.

Sure he would miss the cut, the lanky Australian, who like Furyk is also a former US Open champion, had already boarded a plane for Arizona when he realized he might still have a chance of taking away some prize money.

This after it was too late to get off the plane, so Ogilvy had to fly to Phoenix, then turn around and take a jet back to Tampa.

Playing with little more than an hour of sleep, he shot a sizzling 65 to edge into a tie for 18th and proclaim: “It was worth coming back.”

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